“The Walking Dead” Tiger Becomes Funny When You Realize It’s Just A Guy In A Blue Suit

Spoiler alert: that horrific tiger attack on The Walking Dead season 7 finale was actually a guy jumping around in a blue unitard. It sounds like a joke, but it’s actually an industry technique that brought another famous tiger to life, and how they did it might surprise you.

The fearsome feline that tore onto the screen (and into several characters) may have looked shockingly realistic, but it was actually a digital image applied to stuntman Scott Hunter. Clad from head to toe in bright blue spandex, Hunter’s figure would later easily become Shiva the tiger thanks to chroma keying – or as you probably know it, “green screen.” Digital video cameras are highly sensitive to green and blue, making them the easiest colours to edit out and replace with a new image.

The studio behind it all is Rhythm & Hues, a Hollywood SFX powerhouse known for planting a similar tiger in Ang Lee’s Life of Pi in 2012. Though R&H fell into financial troubles that same year, they’ve since recovered amazingly, and have also done work for Game of Thrones and the X-Men movie series.